


Rehabilitation

by fairytaletrue



Series: The Slow Redemption of Pansy Parkinson [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Anti-Muggle Content, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson Friendship, Dramione Mentioned In Passing, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hurt/Comfort, Muggle Life, Muggle London, POV Pansy Parkinson, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Redemption, Roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:26:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27145193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytaletrue/pseuds/fairytaletrue
Summary: Pansy Parkinson has not been sentenced to Azkaban. Instead, she has been sentenced to Southwark - where she will be without a wand or any contact with the wizarding world for a whole year. She suspects she'd prefer Azkaban. At least there she’d get a bit of peace and quiet, and only the Dementors would bother her. Instead, she's stuck with a relentlessly friendly Muggle flatmate and a rotating cast of idiots as she's shuffled from job to job for her 'educational rehabilitation.' But even snakes eventually shed their scales, and it’s possible Pansy Parkinson is about to learn a thing or two from the most unexpected of sources.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson/Original Male Character(s)
Series: The Slow Redemption of Pansy Parkinson [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981439
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. The Sentencing

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [oh my god, they were roommates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20848391) by [LovesBitca8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovesBitca8/pseuds/LovesBitca8). 



“Miss Parkinson, you were found guilty of criminal complicity in a great number of offences, all of which were allegedly perpetrated during the Second Wizarding War. The most grievous of these appears to be…” The Chief Warlock glanced down at his notes, running his finger down the lengthy parchment that outlined Pansy’s crimes and paused at one item in particular. “… The use of an Unforgivable. The Cruciatus Curse in fact. You apparently cast this on a number of your peers during your final year at Hogwarts. Is that correct?”

Pansy grit her teeth. They’d cast a binding spell on her to keep her in her seat in the centre of the courtroom, and the lack of movement was making her muscles ache. It had been hours. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand unassisted when they released her. “That is what was alleged, yes,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. They hadn’t given her any water, either, though she’d been prepared for that.

It was customary not to afford the accused any ‘unnecessary privileges’ in Wizengamot hearings. The first day her throat had burned and stomach roared. The second day she’d drunk an abundance of water in readiness for the dehydration, failing to remember bathroom breaks had been scarce. Eventually she’d had to beg for a reprieve. It should have plunged her into new depths of humiliation, but it was difficult to care anymore. By the end of the first week, she’d started taking potions to suspend thirst and hunger. It was just easier that way. Besides, there was a certain symmetry in being as suspended physically as she felt mentally. 

The trial had raged for nearly two months, which was shockingly long considering they’d sentenced her parents within three days. Apparently, there was more nuance to consider with her. The issue was not a finding of fact, they’d managed to procure plenty of witnesses, both victims and perpetrators alike to ascertain her crimes. No, the issue was how to sentence her.

“Very careful with your wording I see. Perhaps you will become a counsellor after serving your sentence, hmm? What a turn of events that would be” the Chief Warlock mused, chuckling to himself.

Pansy wondered why that was funny, frowned slightly as she turned the phrase over and over in her mind. She didn’t understand, but she wasn’t exactly in a position to ask for an explanation.

“Well, you caused quite a furore in deliberations Miss Parkinson, I must confess. It turns out your case was something of a lightning rod for diverging opinions on what justice should look like in our post-war society. A Slytherin student, but not a Death Eater, well, not one with the Dark Mark anyway” he sneered, glancing down at her forearm before continuing. “You wanted to hand Mr. Potter over to Voldemort, but that was prior to Order reinforcements arriving at Hogwarts. You’re a known… _associate_ shall we say, of the Malfoy family, who were key allies for Voldemort during the war…”

He continued. For every point against her, there was a mitigating factor. She was from a family of Death Eaters, but that could hardly be said to be her fault. She used an Unforgivable, but that was arguably under duress. On and on and on it went.

“… Which is why we have selected your case for a new sentencing program. Instead of a shorter sentence in Azkaban, which is frankly nearly at capacity anyway – we will be diverting you for educational rehabilitation in Muggle London—”

“I beg your pardon?” she interrupted; unaware she was even asking the question until it exploded from her. Her heart was thudding erratically in her chest. It felt alarmingly, impossibly real. _Muggle London?_

The Chief Warlock frowned at the interruption, but the entire courtroom had erupted into mutters. Not only from disapproving Wizengamot members, but those in the gallery as well.

“What in Merlin’s name is _educational rehabilitation?_ ”

 _“_ Why is Draco Malfoy’s slut receiving lenience?”

“Is she the only one who’ll be, what did he say again?”

“Diverted?”

The Chief Warlock shot her a warning look. “Please do not interrupt me again Miss Parkinson.” He glanced up at the gallery and the onlookers slowly returned to silence. “As I was saying, given the numerous mitigatory factors that exist for your case, you will not be imprisoned in Azkaban. Instead, you will spend twelve months living as a Muggle in London. This is part of a new program we are trialling with the consent of the Muggle Prime Minister…”

The room erupted once again, with some in the gallery openly booing. Pansy waited for the panic to arrive, or for the silver flames of pure blood entitlement to envelop her in their cold, comforting embrace. She knew her lines, what they expected her to say: _‘How dare you. I am a member of the Sacred 28, you will pay for this…’_ but as she tried to summon the will to deliver them, she found she felt no inclination.

Instead, an eerie sort of calm had descended. It was almost as if she wasn’t even there, as if she was looking down on herself - pale and thin and haunted – from above. The truth was there weren’t any silver flames left in her. They’d burnt out, though only Merlin knew the precise moment when.

Perhaps when Draco told her he been tasked with an impossible assassination, and she’d dotted tiny little kisses on his Dark Mark, murmuring he was good, that he had no choice, that they would survive – all the while knowing he didn’t believe her.

Or when she’d sat in the Great Hall in September 1997 and Snape had assumed the Headmasters seat, the Carrows beside him as Deputies, with Minerva McGonagall of all people, looking crumbled and defeated.

Maybe the flames died when she’d cast _Crucio_ on Susan Bones the first time and the sweet little Hufflepuff girl who’d already suffered too much had arched and writhed like Professor Moody’s spider in fourth year.

Or maybe it was when it had been cast on her by Wayne Hopkins, who she’d had a secret, forbidden crush on in their second year, and she’d wondered whether she’d ever be without pain again.

Maybe the flames died when she realised she wasn’t in love with Draco anymore. That he didn’t love her either. That the darkness had taken their little bit of good and swallowed it whole.

Maybe it didn’t matter when they died. Only that they did. That this was her life now and was more than she deserved. Her side, if it could be called that, had lost. 

“You will surrender your wand to the Ministry. We consider the risk of you becoming an Obscurial to be low, as you are 18 years old and will still be able to practice accidental magic – similar to the way Muggle-born children manifest their abilities…”

An old wave of disgust roiled with her at the imputation she would be turned into nothing more than a Muggle-born child unaware of their own magic, but it was hollow. A reflex more than a belief at this point. Pansy wasn’t sure what she believed in anymore.

“… You will assume a Muggle identity, and work in four different Muggle jobs to expose yourself to their way of life. You will share housing with a Muggle – who will be confounded and fed a cover story to establish your foothold in their world.”

Pansy’s lips twitched into a ghost of a smile at this. Oh yes, the Ministry was ushering in a new era. The Muggles were their equals, but they still couldn’t be trusted with the truth. Still had to be confounded into compliance. Hypocrites, the bunch of them.

“… At the close of twelve months, you will undergo a threat assessment – the conclusion of which will determine your suitability for reintegration into the Wizarding World. Further particulars will be explained to you by your case manager, Mr. Dean Thomas. Do you understand your sentence Miss Parkinson?”

She didn’t. Not really, but she nodded regardless. It’s not as if her lack of insight would have changed anything.

The Chief Warlock leaned over his desk to stare down at her imperiously. “The purpose of this program is to re-educate you and dispel the Death Eater ideology you were raised on. I have no shame in admitting I believe you should be sent to Azkaban, but my more progressive colleagues dissented. You should be incredibly grateful the majority of the Wizengamot look upon you with pity, Miss Parkinson.”

Pansy said nothing. Merely stared at the man who’d just confessed he’d like to have her soul stripped away. He pursed his lips, clearly frustrated.

“I suppose expecting a thank you would be excessive. Very well, you are dismissed.”

He flicked his wand at her chair and Pansy was released from the binding charm. Her limbs felt weightless. She wondered if she would float away, but she didn’t. Instead staying frozen in her seat. The Wizengamot filed out, some taking a moment to shoot her glances ranging from outright disgust to vague pity. The gallery had exploded in sound, journalists yelling questions to her, to the Chief Warlock, to anyone who caught their eye. Pansy glanced up at them all, somewhat dazed by the flash of dozens of cameras. By the enormity of what had just been declared. 

The trial was over. 

She was going to be a Muggle.

A single figure caught her eye from the corner of the gallery. Unlike the clamouring reporters and collection of rubber necks, she was utterly still. A pale face completely composed. She stared down at Pansy.

It was Susan Bones.

Pansy opened her mouth as if to say something, perhaps to apologise, but no sound came out. Susan nodded to her, just once, then walked out. Pansy had no idea what it meant. She sagged down, her body melting into the wood unprompted. If she had been floating above herself moments prior, seeing Susan had shoved her mercilessly back down. All that weightlessness had vanished. She felt as if she were made of lead. She’d been correct about being unable to stand unassisted, but there was Dean Thomas walking towards her now, expression tight and eyes hard.

“Come on then Parkinson,” he muttered, grabbing her upper arm and hauling her to her feet even as her legs skittered under her weight. “Now the real work begins.”

They walked through a hidden door in the courtroom and through a series of passageways towards the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Dean said nothing, so Pansy remained silent. She didn’t really have anything to say to him anyway. They turned, and Dean opened the door to a shoebox of an office, gesturing for her to enter. She walked over the threshold and took the seat opposite the desk. He sat behind it, clasping his hands together and studying her.

“Long way from Hogwarts, aren’t we?” he said by way of introduction. It wasn’t particularly effective as ice breakers went, so Pansy simply shrugged.

“I’d wager I’m about to be even further, wouldn’t you?” she replied.

The gravity of it all was starting to sink in now, and the room was too small. Nervous energy crackled through her, a sort of mania that set her teeth on edge and made her stomach roil with nausea. What was going to happen to her? She tried to swallow the sickness to no avail. She felt too big and too small all at once, like every thread of clothing was dragging her down, down, into a quicksand she’d never escape. “Do you mind if I stand?” she said, desperate to relieve the tension, her voice sounding very far away. “I’ve been sitting for weeks.”

Dean gestured for her to go ahead, and she rose from the chair. Her muscles were stiff, and her surroundings swung wildly in response to the movement. She briefly considered pacing, but the room's dimensions didn’t really afford her the luxury. As she glanced around, she realised she must be Thomas’ first case out of Auror training school. She fixed her mind on how silly that was. Some assignment. He probably expected to be rounding up Death Eaters, and instead he was babysitting her sojourn into Muggle London. She felt a familiar sense of disdain settle into her. Good. Good. She could handle that. She crossed her arms and looked down at him.

“Well? Aren’t you going to brief me?” she asked, and there was a touch of the old scorn about it. A reassuring derision that curled its way through her words and spiked them with thorns. Perhaps her silver flames weren’t quite dead yet, she thought to herself.

Dean rolled his eyes and pulled a file from a drawer beside him. “You never were one for niceties, were you Parkinson?”

She snorted. “Apologies if I don’t fall over thanking you for overseeing my banishment.”

Dean huffed. “You fared far better than a lot of your pals. Zabini is off to Azkaban, and I have no idea what they’re going to do with Draco – Hermione has some pull but I can’t imagine it’ll end well.” Pansy said nothing, though her heart clenched at the grim possibilities. Dean continued, “I still find that weird, don’t you? What went on in eighth year to foster that?”

The remaining spark of who she once was suppressed a sneer. Not at Draco and Hermione - who she thought, somewhat grudgingly at first, were a good couple. Instead, at the very prospect of dignifying the question with a response. She was hardly going to share her innermost thoughts with _Dean Thomas._

“Considering a change of careers already Thomas? I hear Witch Weekly is hiring for the gossip beat, you might have a chance,” she drawled, surprising herself with how _her_ she sounded. Perhaps she could pretend her way through.

Dean simply laughed, shaking his head. “You’re still a piece of work then. Good. Makes things easier for me if I don’t have to feel sorry for you. Take a seat please, we need to go through some details.”

Pansy rolled her eyes, revelling in the familiarity of the gesture and sat back down. She was on a roll now, flexing old muscles and finding them strong enough. She could _do_ this.

“You’ll keep your own name. There was some discussion of a new one at first, but we figured it would be too confusing. You’ll be living in South London with a Muggle called Nicholas Croft, he’s just starting out as a lawyer – a sort of Muggle Wizengamot counsellor. No idea how we picked him, so don’t ask. He’ll be under the impression you grew up in a sort of cult, which has the benefit of being somewhat true, and will go a way to explaining why you’ll be so clueless about Muggle life.”

Pansy narrowed her eyes, she would have narrowed her eyes before, right? “I didn’t grow up in a _cult_ , Thomas.” She definitely would have defended her family. 

He simply raised an eyebrow. “You’re right, it was more of a terrorist cell – but we think the Muggle might be a tad uncomfortable with that as a backstory.”

She snorted indelicately. “And what if I just tell him the truth?” she challenged, nonchalantly tipping her weight against the back of the chair and leaving it to balance on two legs like she was back in first year charms class. 

Dean shot her a look. “What, that you picked evil instead of good in a magical war? That you did so because Mummy and Daddy told you your blood was more special than everyone else’s? Go ahead. If he believes you, he’ll probably be just as disgusted as the rest of us. If he doesn’t, he might try and have you committed to one of their loony bins. At least then I won’t have to worry about finding you Muggle jobs for a year.”

Pansy continued to balance her chair, studying him carefully. “Disgusted in me, are you?”

Dean huffed. “Are you honestly surprised?”

And then it was gone, whatever parts of herself she’d summoned in the preceding moments had vanished. She let the chair fall back onto four legs with a thud. 

“No.” She wasn’t. Who could blame him?

Dean didn’t have a response for that, merely grunted in reply and signed a few pieces of parchment, before pushing them across to her.

“Sign here, here and here” he directed, pointing out the various sections. She took the quill and scrawled her name without protest. “No questions about what you’ve just signed?” he challenged, pulling the raft of papers back to him and shuffling them into a neat pile.

Pansy shrugged. “It’s not like it really matters, does it? The outcome will be the same. I don’t actually have a choice here.” 

Dean sighed. “Right. Your wand will be stored in a secure facility for the length of your sentence. All of the necessary items have already been moved to the flat, so there’s no need to concern yourself with possessions or anything. If you’re ready, we can apparate there now.”

Pansy’s chest felt tight. She was about to be exiled. Taken away from everything she’d ever known, shoved into a foreign world she knew nothing about, and expected to just… Start living a completely different life. 

“I don’t get to… I don’t know, say goodbye?”

Dean frowned. “To who? All your friends are in holding. The only one who isn’t is Malfoy, because his pre-trial started—”

The door flew open and Hermione Granger burst through it, with hair escaping from its ponytail and her collar askew. She’d been running. Her chest was rapidly rising and falling in evidence of it, and there was something manic in her expression as she regarded the two of them. “Good,” she said breathlessly. “You’re still here.” Her eyes fell to Pansy, who frowned in response. Something was wrong.

“Dean, you’re wanted down at the Wizengamot. Something about finalities for her” she instructed, jerking her thumb at Pansy. “I can escort her to the residence.”

Dean looked as if he were about to object, but Hermione was already waving a set of files in front of him and grabbing Pansy’s arm to lead her away. “Look, they’ve given me her briefing packet and everything. I’d suggest you hurry though, they’re all a little testy and there’s reporters crawling about everywhere.”

Leaving no time for argument, Hermione yanked Pansy into step and the two of them hurried down the hallway away from Dean.

“I don’t have much time to explain, so do try to keep up. They’ve just ruled on it, but I think I have a plan. They’re going to freeze the Malfoy assets, and no one will be willing to defend him for free. The Ministry is going to give him one of their juniors in a display of good will – but it’s rubbish. Michael Corner doesn’t want his first case to be getting a Death Eater off, no one does.”

Pansy hurried to keep up with Hermione’s furious pace as they barrelled towards the Ministry apparition point. “Why are you telling me this?” she murmured, mindful of the curious stares they were getting. So, Draco couldn’t get a Counsellor, did she want money? Pansy realised with distant shock she could probably spare some. Her parents were in Azkaban. She was the only one who’d have access to the family accounts now.

“I’d do it myself, but certain parties have made it clear to me that will be impossible. You wanted to be a Wizengamot Counsellor, didn’t you? I’m sure you mentioned it at some point last year.”

Any sort of thinking had felt like walking through syrup for months now, but as Hermione frogmarched her through the Ministry, Pansy’s mind cleared slightly. She realised the implication and tried to stop walking. To just, for a _moment,_ stop and think and _plan,_ but Hermione still had a firm grip on her arm and so she was simply dragged along. “I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but I was just sentenced to twelve months in Muggle London,” Pansy hissed. “I also haven’t had any training in magical law, so I am hardly—”

“I know you can’t now. He’s going to lose the first trial. You’ll be there for the second one. He’ll be up for appeal the same month your sentence ends. I’m the one who made sure you were put with a Muggle lawyer, Pansy, and you don’t need any formal qualifications to be a Counsellor. I checked. _Accio Pansy Parkinson Briefing Packet,”_ she muttered. A thick file flew across the hallway and Hermione grabbed at it with one hand, releasing Pansy from her death grip. “They didn’t actually send me for you,” she confessed.

“I figured.”

“Hold on,” she instructed, and then Pansy felt her entire body constrict as they apparated away.

Then it was over, her body stretched back out. Pansy gasped, desperate for air, and as she righted herself the sun was like a second blow. It was _bright._ In _London. Why?_ She glanced about, they were outside a row of flats, one of which was presumably hers now. She ignored Hermione, who was already yammering again. She just needed one moment to get her bearings, to adjust herself to her new reality… Everything was happening at once; it was too quick. Hermione hardly seemed fazed at all, simply dragging her along the street.

“You’re going to spend this time figuring out a way to save him. You love him, don’t you?”

Pansy snapped her head to look at Hermione incredulously. “I… I’m not _in…_ You two are—”

Hermione waved her hand in a quick, dismissive gesture. “Oh, I know you’re not _in_ love with him. I mean you love each other platonically, like friends. Yes?”

Pansy fumbled for words. They’d never discussed the way their relationship had changed once it was clear it wasn’t romantic, just sort of let it... “Yes. Yes, I suppose we do.”

Hermione nodded once. “Then save him. You’re the only one who cares enough, who has enough nerve, and more than anything else will be available to do so.”

Pansy stopped walking. “Just give me one _fucking_ minute Granger,” she demanded, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. The syrup, thankfully, had cleared somewhat, and her mind whirred as she considered it all. She was exiled to… She looked at the street sign, SE1? Circe, the Muggles had some strange names for things. She was exiled to SE1 for a year. Hypothetically, a lot could be accomplished in a year, especially if she had nothing else to do, which she wouldn’t. Draco was going to be represented by that swotty Ravenclaw, Corner. So, there was no hope of a good outcome. She had wanted to be a Counsellor, and she supposed she _did_ love Draco, in their odd sort of way. She took in a deep breath.

“So what, it will be a sham trial?” she asked. 

Hermione nodded once. “He’s a Malfoy,” she said, by way of explanation. “There are certain things even I can’t fix.”

Pansy felt a fierce sense of protectiveness arise within her and was surprised at its strength. She’d seen what the War had done to Draco first-hand. How it had cut him down and hollowed him out, its bony fingers coating him in grime until that gleam of arrogance had disappeared. And now the world was run by the retired heroes, so who was left to save the villains? She sighed. Her, apparently.

“Right then. Send me every book you have on magical law Granger.”

Hermione’s face flooded with relief. “I will, here are your keys” she said, pressing them into Pansy’s hand. “You’re flat eleven, and here’s my phone number” she said, writing it down on the top of the file before handing it over.

Pansy frowned. “Your what?”

Hermione laughed. “You’ll figure it out.”

Pansy eyed number eleven suspiciously and moved to walk up the stairs. It didn’t look too shabby, she supposed, though it was hardly the Parkinson Estate.

“Oh, and Pansy? He’s cute. The Muggle I mean,” Hermione called.

She turned back and rolled her eyes at her. “Your boyfriend’s only been in jail for four weeks. Contain your wandering eye, would you?”

It felt odd to joke about Draco being imprisoned, but the alternative was sobbing into Hermione’s mane, which she didn’t see herself doing any time soon.

Hermione laughed again, shaking her head, but as she looked up at her, the mirth faded.

“Pansy?”

“Yes Hermione?”

“Good luck.”

And with a _crack,_ she was gone. Pansy walked up the remaining steps, turned the key in the door, and entered. She waited for the Muggle to appear, but he didn’t seem to be home. Thank Merlin for small mercies, she supposed. There would be time to inspect her new living quarters, but a wave of exhaustion slammed into her so fiercely she almost collapsed right there in the threshold. Sluggishly, she shuffled down the hallway, opening each door until she found a sparse little bedroom with a trunk labelled ‘PP’. She fell face first onto the bed, and a single, pathetic little sob wormed its way out of her chest right before she fell asleep.


	2. A Series of Firsts

Pansy heard the front door open and shut and cracked open a single eye. That would be the Muggle, then. She wondered if she could go 12 months without speaking to him at all. Perhaps she could slip in and out whenever she had to go to whatever nonsense job the Ministry had sourced for her, eat all of her meals in her bedroom, and bathe in the dead of night. Hypothetically it was possible, she would just have to be—

_Knock, knock._

Vigilant. Hopes dashed before they could even be properly articulated, that had to be a record, she thought, shuffling up. She eyed her reflection in the mirror over her shoulder. The image was… Unpleasant. Sallow skin, sunken eyes, and her usually sleek hair in disarray. She waited to care; for her once-ceaseless instinct to preen and improve and groom to materialise. Nothing. She wondered if it was because it was a Muggle behind the door, or because it was increasingly difficult to care about anything at all. She huffed, already sick of her own sense of ennui, and wrenched the door open.

_Oh._

So, Hermione had been correct. The Muggle was handsome. In an odd way. Tall, with a strong jaw and brown eyes that twinkled down at her with a sort of bemused curiosity. She’d never been the type to prompt bemusement before, she thought. Apparently today was going to involve a series of firsts. She continued her study of him, eyeing him up and down critically. His hair was a mess, with too-long sandy brown locks falling every which way. Unfortunately, rather than detracting from anything, they only heightened his overall sense of rough-and-tumble charm. He looked like a Gryffindor, Pansy decided, which did not bode well for either of them. He leaned against her door frame and smiled, revealing a row of perfectly straight white teeth. Circe.

“Hello, I’m Nick. Are you hungry?”

His voice was low and warm and flecked with familiar tones of obscene privilege. It was the kind of voice you’d want to read you a bedtime story, Pansy reflected, or tell you exactly how it wanted to fuck you. She glanced down, noting the plastic bag dangling from his left hand.

“It’s Indian. They told me you hadn’t spent much time in London, I figured I’d try and start strong,” he said, noting the direction of her gaze.

Sleep still coated her tongue, and she coughed to clear her throat. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t going to share a meal with this Muggle – he couldn’t even style his hair properly. Not that she could talk.

“I’m not…” but then her stomach growled audibly as the scent of whatever was in the bag floated towards her. An indeterminate blend of spices, coconut and… Chicken? She let out an involuntary moan. The suspension potion had worn off, and a savage sense of emptiness ripped through her.

Nick the Muggle chuckled. “I’ll heat this up then.”

Pansy hesitated. She didn’t have to go out there. She could stay here and not engage. Leaving the room was a choice, one she couldn’t go back on once she’d made it. But then she heard the rip of plastic containers being opened and an odd sort of buzzing, followed by a stab of hunger from her stomach.

All things considered one meal probably wouldn’t make her some sort of Muggle-lover. She mused. It was doubtful one curry was the difference between Lucius Malfoy and Arthur Weasley after all. It was even possible she was actually taking advantage of him by eating his food and not paying for it. Or would that make her indebted? Her stomach ached. Fuck it. She whipped her cloak and shoes off and padded out into the kitchen in her court dress and stockings. Nick glanced at her and tried to suppress a small smile.

“What’s your name?” he asked, in a tone she recognised from her Care of Magical Creatures professors. That was the voice they used when talking to hippogriffs. Or dragons. All gentle and cautious. She wasn’t sure whether to be offended or not.

Pansy hopped into a stool at the kitchen bench and eyed the large black box that was spinning a container of food in the corner. Neon green numbers counted down the minutes. What on Earth was that supposed to achieve?

“Pansy,” she murmured in reply, frowning at the box.

“It’s heating the food,” he explained, gesturing at it. “We call it a microwave.”

Pansy snapped her head to him, suddenly acutely aware of how stupid she looked. Who cared how the Muggles heated their food? The point was they had to sit around and wait for a humming box to achieve what a simple warming spell could do in seconds.

“I see,” she said stiffly.

He smiled, busying himself with cutlery and plates. “They told me you grew up in a sort of…Alternative community. That you wouldn’t be familiar with a lot of modern technology,” he explained, handing her a plate.

She placed it down in front of her. “They told me you’d be told it was a cult,” she retorted.

He winced. “Yes, well I didn’t want to be that blunt.”

Pansy frowned. “Why do you think you’re doing this? Are you being paid?”

Nick laughed, noting the ‘why do you _think_ you’re doing this’ as opposed to ‘why _are_ you doing this.’ Maybe she’d been some sort of mind control groupie.

“I minored in social work at uni. Apparently at some point I signed up for a pilot program that’s only now getting off the ground,” he said.

Pansy understood all of those words individually, but the way he put them together rendered them utterly meaningless. He carried on, seemingly unaware.

“So, they looked me up, saw I was a lawyer now and asked if I’d still be interested. My flatmate had just left for Italy, so the room was free, and I thought, why not? If you turn out to be a nightmare, I’m a few quid richer. Besides – it’s only 12 months.”

Pansy picked up a fork and absently twirled it in her hand. “Right.”

So, the confundus charm had been paired with some sort of elaborate backstory. She wondered what the Aurors had done to the original occupant of her bedroom. Or perhaps they really were in Italy. Meanwhile, Nick pulled the Indian from the _microwave_ and placed it in front of her. She eyed it suspiciously, making no move to eat it despite loud protests from her stomach. Nick simply shook his head, chuckled, and made a show of stabbing a piece of meat with his fork and popping it into his mouth.

“Delicious. It’s always so much tastier without the poison, don’t you think?” he commented, swallowing and pushing the container closer to her plate.

Pansy spooned a portion onto the plate and followed it with some rice. She contemplated the food for a moment. Muggle food couldn’t be that different from Wizarding food. She’d grown up on house elf cooking after all, and they weren’t even human. Plus, Hermione was always banging on about how technology compensated for a lot of spells. It would have been a fairly elaborate way to go about executing her, she supposed. She ate a forkful, paused, and then, convinced it wasn’t poisoned, dug in. Nick seemed to take this as some sort of victory and began on his own meal. They continued like this – Nick sticking the containers in the microwave, shoving it across to Pansy, then serving himself, in companionable silence until the meal was finished.

“I’m surprised,” he remarked, eyeing her with what appeared to be respect, “some of those were quite spicy. People like us tend to respond poorly to that.”

Pansy suppressed an eyeroll. People like _us_ indeed. She had more in common with a mermaid. “I think you’d find a lot of things about me would surprise you,” she muttered, shoving her stool away from the counter and stalking back to her room.

* * *

_Three Months Later_

“Excuse me? Excuse me!”

Pansy snapped out of the memory and stared at the shrivelled looking woman standing before her. Her mouth seemed to be permanently affixed to the expression one could only achieve by eating a lemon. Pansy stared at it, transfixed. Perhaps she’d been on the receiving end of a freezing curse.

“Do you have a new one of this?” she asked, holding up an exceptionally ugly dress she’d pulled from a rack beside her.

A rack clearly and garishly labelled ‘Last Chance!’ in large white letters. Pansy looked from the sign, to the woman, then back to the sign. She wondered if this was some sort of test devised by the store’s area manager, Christine, but the woman appeared to be genuine in her inquiry. And all of this was supposed to _reverse_ her belief Muggles were stupid. For Circe’s sake.

“No, we don’t,” she replied blandly. She met the woman’s eyes with the carefully practiced look of complete apathy she’d perfected over the past three months. Her eyes glimmered in return with a blend of contempt and fury Pansy now recognised as common for the women who shopped in this store.

“How do you know that?” she demanded, clutching the hanger a little tighter and shoving it towards Pansy. Pansy looked at the dress. It really was very ugly.

She sighed. “Because you pulled it from the last chance rack. That means it’s your last chance to buy it.”

The woman did not give up, instead shoving the dress into Pansy’s arms with no small amount of force. Pansy stumbled back a bit.

“You haven’t even checked. You should look it up on the computer” the woman sneered, jerking her head towards the gleaning white counter at the back of the store.

Pansy wrinkled her nose at the thought of having to negotiate with that blasted computer. Login codes and browsers and Point of Sales software, indeed. Not to mention the keys with all the letters on it, which didn’t even have the common decency to be in alphabetical order.

“I don’t need to look it up on the computer” she explained through gritted teeth, adjusting her grip on the dress. “This is from the last chance rack.” Did they not teach them to read?

“You aren’t even going to take a look out the back?”

Pansy suppressed a scream. What was with Muggle women’s obsession with _the back?_ Every day, some entitled woman, often with a screaming infant, would tell her to go and check _out the back_ for an item. Even after she expressly told them they didn’t have it. They seemed to think _the back_ was a sort of room of requirement, or secret passcode, that they only had to mention and their hearts desire – invariably some disgusting, neon, polyester thing no one in their right mind would ever, ever wear, and it would materialise _out the back_ for Pansy to retrieve like some sort of well trained rat. It was preposterous.

“It isn’t in the back,” Pansy said through gritted teeth. What she’d give for a little _stupefy_ right now. Her fingers twitched towards her hip reflexively, reaching for a wand that wasn’t there, and she wouldn’t get back for another _nine months._ She wasn’t sure she’d last that long.

The woman carried on, oblivious to Pansy’s homicidal intent. “How can you be sure if you refuse to go and check?”

Perhaps physical violence would do. She didn’t need to check, because it was on the fucking last chance rack. Even if it weren’t there, Pansy would know – because she took her miserable thirty-minute lunch break _out the back,_ amidst the plastic smelling packaged clothes and storeroom dust. This meant she knew what was there in painstaking detail, and that dress wasn’t.

“Because I work here” she said, pointing to her bright red lanyard and staff name tag – which said ‘LUCY’ because no one had bothered to make her one with her actual name. “I know what is in the back. That item is not out the back. It’s the last one of its kind in that size. That is why it’s on the last chance rack. It’s your last chance to buy it before it’s sold out.”

“I don’t need you to explain a last chance rack to me, Lucy,” she hissed.

“Clearly you do.”

The woman looked scandalised, and her mouth finally assumed a new position, though this was also one Pansy was familiar with: the mouth of a shocked customer. They always dropped open, then closed, then reopened. Sort of like a Grindelow, or a Muggle goldfish.

“You know you’re not being very polite,” she accused, wrenching the dress back from Pansy.

Pansy snorted. “Nor are you.”

What was it with Muggles and expecting to be treated like gods? Granted – the only Muggles she’d really interacted with were the women who came in to buy cheap, poorly constructed clothes from her, but still. Such a sense of _entitlement._ The woman sniffed and pulled herself up to her full height. All five feet of it. Pansy continued to stare down at her, unmoved.

Then she said the magic seven words.

“I’d like to speak to your manager.”

Pansy did not suppress her sigh this time. Instead, she brought her _walkie talkie,_ a name she thought was both infantile and ridiculous, to her lips.

“Rebecca, I have a customer here on the floor who’d like to speak to you,” she muttered, flashing the woman a sardonic smile. They always wanted to talk to the manager eventually. She hardly needed an O in Divination to see that coming.

The little radio crackled to life. “No worries! I’ll be there right away!”

Pansy winced. Rebecca was actually very nice. She put up with her sour attitude without complaint and was constantly trying to explain to Pansy how to be nice, how to upsell, how to make customers feel welcome... She also put sales through with Pansy’s code once she’d reached her sales target, so Pansy wouldn’t get in trouble with the higher ups for not meeting budget. Plus, she invited her places – out for lunch, to the cinema, for after work drinks. She’d even offer to walk her home after her shift. Rebecca was clearly trying to befriend her.

She would have been a Hufflepuff.

Pansy knew that because Rebecca reminded her of Susan Bones.

She didn’t want to be reminded of Susan Bones.

Rebecca appeared then, blonde ponytail bobbing with her movements merrily as she made her way to the two of them. She beamed at the customer.

“Now, how can I help?” she queried, looking between the two of them with her signature relentless positivity. How she managed to stay so happy without a cheering charm was beyond Pansy. Especially in this lighting. Fluorescent lighting, she had determined, was the Muggle equivalent to Dementors.

“Lucy here has been incredibly rude to me, I’d like her disciplined,” the woman began, and Rebecca nodded empathetically.

“I understand – Lucy, how would you like to take your break and I’ll handle this?” Rebecca said, winking at Pansy conspiratorially.

Pansy felt a surge of camaraderie, but quickly suppressed it. Instead glancing down at her watch and shooting the woman a smirk.

“Happily – my shifts nearly over anyway,” she sneered, sauntering away.

* * *

Pansy stumbled into the flat, dropping her keys – physical keys, like she was some sort of gamekeeper, into the little bowl by the door. She lurched down the hall and collapsed artlessly onto the couch in the living room. Her legs ached. She was exhausted. She’d been standing for eight hours on a concrete floor nearly every day for three months now. They’d told her a retail job would be _easy._ Dean had assured her she’d only be placed in positions of _unskilled labour._ She’d thought that would mean they’d be easy. Apparently, that was just another thing she was going to be wrong about.

“Add it to the list,” she muttered mutinously.

Nick eyed her from the kitchen. She could feel his gaze on her. It made her skin crawl. They’d reached a sort of amicable peace in the months following their first meeting. She stayed out of his way, and he out of hers. They occasionally watched television together, and every now and then she allowed him to teach her things about Muggle life. Mostly how to use the various inventions in the kitchen. Which, she assured herself – were absolutely necessary in order to keep her alive and not at all a sign she was softening on Muggles. He made occasional attempts to get to know her, she mercilessly shut them down. On and on it went. 

He was still wearing what he’d informed her were his _barrister’s robes_. They reminded her of home. She rather pathetically looked forward to seeing them and was always disappointed when he returned home in his suit. It helped nothing that Nick looked rather dashing in them. Not that she was attracted to him. She wasn’t. He was a Muggle. She couldn’t possibly be attracted to a Muggle.

Nick walked into the living room carrying an enormous box.

“This came for you today,” he said, dropping it with a thud at her feet. “You know, there’s no need to buy bricks. The wall is holding just fine without replacements.”

Pansy rolled her eyes and righted herself. Glancing at the box, she recognised Hermione’s neat scrawl in the address section.

Oh.

“Thanks,” she said. She moved to pick it up, only for it to be prohibitively heavy.

Nick noticed her predicament and grinned. “I can put it in your room if you like,” he offered, bending over to pick it up again. When she didn’t protest, he lifted it, his face quickly going red from the exertion.

“Christ Pansy – I was joking about the bricks. What the hell is in here?” he asked, staggering towards her room but only making it to the little desk in the corner. He slammed the box down on it and panted slightly.

She grabbed a knife from the kitchen. “None of your business,” she replied, slicing open the box and lifting the first stack of parchment from within. She rested it on the desk and felt a thrill go through her as she began to read.

_Wizarding Britain v Draco Malfoy. Case No. 72197 – Wizarding War Trial Series 3: Major Death Eaters. Full Hearing of the Wizengamot…_

Finally.

Nick lifted the next stack of parchment from the box. “Wait a minute… Are these court transcripts?”

Pansy glanced up from her stack and snatched the next set away from him. “What they are is none of your business,” she snapped, replacing them in the box.

“Pansy if you need legal help—” he began.

“I don’t need anything from you,” she interrupted. And she didn’t. She’d been studying the books Hermione had sent her for _months_ in preparation. It had taken her ages to detangle the ancient Wizengamot procedures, but she finally had it figured out. Now, with the transcripts, she’d be able to construct a strategy for Draco’s appeal. The last thing she needed was some messy-haired Muggle who was always trying to be nice to her to distract her.

Nick ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “For fuck’s sake I’m a _lawyer_ —"

“That isn’t relevant to this,” she insisted, returning to the first page of the transcript in dismissal.

He did not take the hint. “The fact I practice law isn’t relevant to the transcripts you’re reading from a court of law. Really?”

“Yes, really,” she murmured, flipping the page over and beginning on the next.

He grabbed her shoulder, pulling her gently to face him. “Pansy I’m a _professional—"_

“You’re a Muggle!” she yelled, slamming her hand down on the desk in frustration. Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone? Instead of making her cups of tea and asking about her day and milling about smelling of something she swore she recognised from a time before the war. Had it been sixth year? Impossible.

She’d wanted him and his lot enslaved or dead and the last thing she needed was his fucking _kindness_ or his _help._ The only thing she wanted was for him to comb his goddamn hair and leave her alone. It really wasn’t that much to ask.

“I’m a what?” he asked in confusion.

She sighed in irritation. “You’re an irritant is what you are,” she declared. “Go away.”

“I mean, I live here. What is it you just called me? A Mug? Was that a cult thing?” he queried, that damned smile creeping back.

She glared at him. “You think I escaped from some sort of cult, right? That I got out to safety and now I live with you under some sort of government protection, yes?” she questioned crisply.

Nick’s smile faded. “Yeah. That’s about the gist of things.”

“Did it ever occur to you that isn’t something to joke about?”

Silence.

“Furthermore, did it ever occur to you that – hypothetically, I have friends in that _cult_ that didn’t escape into nice flats in SE1, and that maybe they’re still in harm’s way?” she continued. “That maybe I’m trying to figure out a way to free them?”

Nick swallowed.

“Of course, it didn’t. Life’s just one big adventure for you, isn’t it Nick?” she said coldly.

He coughed. “Look, I’m sorry about joking around with the cult thing, but you don’t exactly give me much to go on Pansy…”

Pansy flicked her hand in dismissal. “Just leave me alone.”

Nick hesitated, glancing once more at the transcripts, then back to Pansy.

“You can have the desk to… Do whatever it is you’re doing,” he muttered, before turning away.

Pansy let out a small sigh of relief. Finally. 

She pulled out the seat and began to read.

It was time to figure out how to save her best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we meet Nick. God bless him. 
> 
> I have finished my thesis! And my research project! Uni is complete until my final exams! This hopefully means uploads will be somewhat regular - I'm thinking once a week?
> 
> Can I also say, having worked in retail I too remain mystified over Muggle women's obsession with 'the back.' 
> 
> Feedback welcomed/appreciated/begged for. Comments and kudos are love.


	3. Burnt Toast

It had started quite innocuously.

With a sticky note, in fact.

Pansy had come home from her new job as a McDonalds crew member (why couldn’t they just call her an employee? Why was she a member of a _crew?_ As far as she could tell they never went sailing) to find a bright yellow sticky note atop one of the witness statements.

The note simply said ‘ _prior inconsistent statement?_ _See page 732’_ in bright red ink.

Pansy had narrowed her eyes at the note. It was an affront. She knew with absolute certainty it could only have been Nick who had written it, which meant he’d once again been sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. Fucking Muggles. Fucking  _ Nick _ . He was incorrigible.

Yet, she’d hit a wall with the case. Not having the usual Ministry training in Wizarding law slowed her progress considerably. It was for that reason, and to satisfy her curiosity only, that she’d flipped to the index of one her tomes on wizarding law. As she ran her finger down the listings, her eyes caught upon a single phrase: ‘ _ Changed Witness Narratives. _ ’

Interesting.

So perhaps Wizarding law and Muggle law had some crossover after all.

Not that it meant anything. Thinking about it logically, Half-bloods and Muggle-borns with lawyer parents had to have contributed something to wizarding law over the years. They’d probably carried across various pieces of Muggle legislation over now that she thought about it. There was nothing ground-breaking about that. Nick wasn’t special. Besides, she knew for a fact Hermione was doing a comparative analysis of civil rights law in Muggle jurisdictions for her study in blood purity laws at the moment.

It wasn’t a big deal.

It didn’t mean they were the  _ same. _

Regardless, because she wasn’t a complete monster, she’d begrudgingly thanked Nick for the suggestion when he’d come home that night. He’d simply shrugged, told her it was nothing, and gone back to making his dinner.

A few days later, there were two more sticky notes.

_ Hearsay? _

_ Potentially incompetent witness… _

He’d been right about those, too.

Except – she’d needed help with the hearsay one. It had been second-hand hearsay after all, which was complicated. Understanding had eluded her for five days before she’d finally cracked and asked for his help. Which he’d given, patiently and gently, explaining it to her and assuring her he’d struggled with the same thing in law school and everyone usually got confused.

They’d gotten into an argument about tendency evidence a few days later, which had only been resolved when Nick had acquiesced that maybe, potentially, she had a point, and maybe, potentially, she’d make a good lawyer.

After that he’d stalked out onto the balcony to get away from her, so, naturally, she’d followed him. Just to drive home the point. Annoy him a little bit. He’d simply given her a good-natured shrug in return, and offered her a cigarette, which she’d taken. So, they’d sat smoking together in silence.

It wasn’t a big deal.

It also hadn’t been a big deal when he’d visited her at work. Something she had expressly told him not to do, which of course meant he’d done it right away. He’d been dressed in the dark green three-piece suit that Pansy secretly loved, and the other girls had gushed about how handsome he looked as he sauntered in.

Pansy did not gush. She was too busy dealing with a man she was convinced was half-troll, who had been given ten McNuggets, after having ordered ten McNuggets, but who was convinced he had, in fact, ordered twenty McNuggets and that Pansy had a brain defect.

“Listen I understand you’re just a counter bitch, but I fucking ordered twenty nuggets, so I want twenty nuggets,” the man had menaced.

Pansy, who had dealt with things much worse than a hungry male Muggle, simply sighed. “Yes, but as I said before – here on your receipt, it says ten. So, you only paid for ten – so if you would like another ten, you’ll have to pay for the difference.”

“Just give me my fucking nuggets.”

Pansy had scowled at that.

“No.”

“If I pay for your extra ten nuggets will you piss off?” Nick had asked, dramatically rustling around in his pocket for the relevant change.

Pansy wondered if you could strain your eyes from rolling them too much.

“Don’t bother Nick.”

“No really Pans, if he can’t afford it, I’m happy to help out.”

Which had of course started the whispers.

“THAT is the flatmate?”

“You’re kidding.”

“He’s cute.”

“Did he just call her  _ Pans?” _

The troll had not found Nick cute, and had instead turned around and punched him in the face, at which point Pansy – acting on sheer instinct and not, as she assured herself later, out of any desire to protect Nick at all, had jumped over the counter, ready to deliver a little bit of Muggle justice herself. However, all of the commotion had prompted the kitchen boys to investigate, one of whom had pulled Pansy away from the melee and roared for the man to  _ get the fuck out and don’t come back. _

She’d been sent home once the incident report had been filled out, accompanied by a bloodied Nick, who cheerfully told her he’d never been in a fight before, and was quite glad to tick it off his bucket list. Pansy was tempted to point out fights usually involved more than one punch being thrown, but, for reasons she didn’t quite understand, bit her tongue.

Which left her here.

In the kitchen.

Making  _ breakfast. _

For the  _ two of them. _

Which also wasn’t a big deal.

It was toast. There was nothing symbolic about recooked bread. It didn’t mean she liked Muggles, or Nick, or anything about educational rehabilitation. It was simply something she was doing to indicate gratitude for the help he’d provided with Draco’s case. A rebalancing of the scales. Though, she had to admit the toast was taking quite a while to cook – longer than usual, and was that smoke emanating from the toaster? Was that normal?

Then the ceiling began to scream.

It hadn’t done that before.

Pansy winced and put her hands over her ears, muttering a quick, useless  _ silencio  _ and wishing she’d paid more attention to her lessons on wandless magic. Nick soon emerged from his bedroom, hair in complete disarray and wearing nothing but his boxers and a t-shirt that read TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE.

“What the bloody hell were you thinking woman?” he groaned, rubbing sleep from his eyes and squinting up at the ceiling.

“I was just making toast!” she protested innocently.

Nick groaned. “Did you check the dial?”

Pansy frowned, cocking her head to the side in confusion. “The what?”

“The dial!” He yelled, gesturing furiously at the toaster, which was now smoking merrily. “I made crumpets yesterday!” he said, as if that explained things.

She looked at him incredulously. “So?”

“So, they bloody well take longer, I had to adjust the dial!”

“You adjusted the what?”

“The – oh for fuck’s sake…” he muttered.

He stormed into the kitchen and reached up towards the ceiling. There was a device there. That’s what was screaming. Some part of her brain did register that. 

But Pansy could do nothing but stare. 

The reaching had caused Nick’s shirt to ride up, revealing a trail of dark hair that started at the base of his navel and disappeared into the top of his boxers. It sent her mind into a spiral of incredibly filthy thoughts. Her throat was suddenly quite dry. She swallowed. Gods above.

The room fell silent, and Nick surveyed her. She couldn’t look away. She swallowed again. The morning light was filtering through their front window, casting him in a golden haze. Circe, had he always looked this good? Or was it a morning thing? And that fucking hair. She wondered what it would feel like to run her fingers through it. There was certainly enough to grab… He smirked. He was always smirking. It was infuriating.

“Are you doing anything today?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No… I was just going to…”

He crossed his arms. He hadn’t always had muscles like that, she would have noticed.

“Excellent, I’ll show you the city after we get breakfast then.”

That snapped her out of it. Breakfast. She’d been making breakfast and then the ceiling had started yelling and now she was standing in the kitchen drooling over her Muggle roommate. Who now wanted to show her the city. Absolutely not. There was no way that was happening.

“Oh no that’s fine, I have…” she turned to look at the toaster, which, with a perfectly horrible sense of comedic timing, popped up two completely black slices of toast.

“Toast?” Nick asked innocently. “I think you and the toaster should spend some time apart, don’t you?”

Pansy said nothing, looking uselessly between Nick and the toaster.

“Come on, I know a spot nearby,” he encouraged, turning back to his room to get dressed.

Pansy stayed in the kitchen, watching as Nick closed his bedroom door.

Oh Circe.

Oh Circe.

Oh  _ Circe. _

She  _ liked  _ him.

* * *

Pansy stared at Nick over her pancakes, which looked lovely, but were getting ever colder, as she’d spent the majority of breakfast staring at him. He didn’t appear to notice, having tucked into his full English with gusto. She watched him with a horrified fascination. Everything about him seemed attractive now that she’d realised. The way he held his fork, with those hands of his and their slightly protruding veins; the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed, even the way he narrowed his eyes as he thought about something seemed sexual, romantic and dashing.

She liked him. A Muggle. She raised a hand to her forehead. Her temperature was normal. So, she wasn’t sick. She’d had her period a few days ago as well. Which meant she was romantically interested in a Muggle and couldn’t even blame it on a fever or PMS.

What a horrible fate.

Nick looked up at her and smiled. “You alright there, darling?”

She felt a rush of pleasure run through her. He’d just called her darling. He’d just called her darling and she  _ wanted him to do it again. _

This was insane.

And why was he being so nice to her anyway? She wasn’t nice to him. At all.

“Why are you so nice to me?”

Nick frowned slightly. “Are people not usually nice to you?”

Pansy suppressed an eyeroll. No, they weren’t, but that was hardly the point.

“I’m not nice to you,” she pointed out, finally picking up her cutlery and beginning to eat. She needed to feign some sort of casualness; pretend things were normal even if they most certainly were not. The food tasted of nothing, though she wasn’t sure if it was because the pancakes were bad, or the fact she had realised her brain was a blood traitor.

“Oh, I don’t know about that – you tried to make me toast this morning, and you steal cigarettes from me constantly. Only my friends and very pretty girls get to do that.”

The cigarette thing was his fault. She hadn’t smoked prior to meeting him. People smoked pipes where she came from, and she’d never been particularly interested in it as a practice. But then he’d offered her a cigarette one night, and even when the first drag made her cough furiously, she liked the way the smoke eventually hovered in her mouth. How it made her lungs burn and head spin. Plus, she thought Nick looked cool when he smoked, and she wasn’t above doing something for purely aesthetic purposes. She was a Slytherin after all.

“At a minimum, you have to admit I’m quite dismissive,” she insisted.

Nick shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe it’s because of the kind of law I practice, maybe it’s just my tender heart, I believe in seeing the best in people. Treating them well. Even women who wake me up on my day off to the sound of a smoke alarm.”

He said this as if it were nothing. As if it were the easiest thing in the world to look at her and not assume the worst. It was completely shocking. She busied herself with her pancakes, she should never have asked him about any of this, it was all getting to be a bit much.

“You hardly know anything about me.”

Nick finished the last of his meal and sat back in his chair to look at her. “That’s not true. I know you went through something horrible and you’re still cut up about it. I know you’re trying to help someone from that time with every spare minute you have. Granted, I don’t know your favourite colour or things like that – but as far as I can tell you’re a good enough person” he said. 

Pansy felt her eyes well up with tears, which was ridiculous. After months on end of feeling absolutely nothing except for the occasional frustration, she was now crying because some Muggle boy had told her she was worth treating well. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She sniffed.

“Christ Pans, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Nick said, alarmed.

She blinked away her tears. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. She sniffed again. “Can we leave?”

Nick wiped his mouth with a napkin, which she would usually have thought was uncommonly good manners for a Muggle, but now simply cursed because it brought her attention back to his mouth. She coughed, blushing furiously, and stood from the table.

“I’ll meet you out the front” she said stiffly and fled before he could do anything else to reduce her to a simpering fool, like breathe in an unusually good looking way or something.

* * *

They were taking  _ the tube, _ Nick had informed her, which apparently necessitated going underground on a moving staircase. Not the kind of moving staircase she was used to either. On the Muggle version, the stairs moved individually up or down, as opposed to the entire thing changing directions like they had at school. She thought it was rather clever, then caught herself thinking something Muggles had made was clever. Perhaps that would be her life now, delighting in even the tiniest, stupidest things Muggles did because Muggles did them, like some sort of Weasley. What was next? A newfound love for the fry basket at work? Now that she wanted to fuck a Muggle, she supposed anything was possible.

Nick kept looking at her strangely, which she supposed was fair enough. She’d been sobbing over her pancakes twenty minutes ago and had said hardly anything since. She walked along the platform. Nick had begun explaining trains to her at first, which she’d interrupted to point out she wasn’t fucking stupid, she knew what a train was. Big bloody metal thing, ran on coal, moved on tracks. At which point Nick had hesitated, then nodded and said, “sort of.”

Apparently, a tube was a special type of train, and she should be careful to stand behind the lines on the platform.

“This one’s just passing through, we’ll get the next,” Nick advised her.

She nodded, peering down the tunnel. Special sort of train indeed. She thought mutinously. He was probably just…

Then the train tore through the platform at breakneck speed, and the air around them  _ whooshed. _ And Pansy became certain the tube was going to kill her. That she was going to die. She yelped and leapt back, grabbing onto Nick’s hand in fright. He pulled her into him protectively, roaring with laughter.

“Shhh, it’s okay…” He stroked her hair, shaking with laughter. “I knew you’d get a fright but  _ fuck.”  _ He laughed again.

Pansy pulled away from him. “You knew that was going to happen and didn’t warn me?” she accused, shooting him a hateful look. She couldn’t muster up much anger though. Not with the adrenaline shooting through her and making her grin.

He grinned. “It was too good of an opportunity to miss” he confessed, then glanced down.

They were still holding hands.

She snatched hers away.

* * *

“Just stay in there for one more second, I want to get a photo!” Nick called.

Pansy was not breathing. “It  _ reeks  _ in here!” she protested.

Nick looked out from the camera, something she recognised from second year with that Creevey kid, and pretended to be offended. “This is an iconic piece of London, Pansy! Don’t be rude!”

She stamped her foot. “It smells of PISS!”

“That would be because people piss in them,” Nick explained.

Pansy screamed in disgust and ran out of the red telephone box.

Nick pouted. “Now the photo will be blurry,” he whined.

Pansy bared her teeth. “Your vision’s about to be blurry if you’re not fucking careful.”

* * *

Her legs burned. “If this is another trick to frighten me or make me stand in a public toilet – I will push you down this staircase,” she warned, glancing back at all the steps they’d climbed. 

This time, it was Nick rolling his eyes. “You’re forgetting I also took you to a flower market, and some gorgeous ruins.”

“Ruins that had been attacked in a  _ war,”  _ she pointed out.

“Which only adds to their appeal.”

They had been gorgeous. The flower market too. Neither of them had involved hundreds of stairs in St Paul’s Cathedral though. It wasn’t that she wasn’t used to climbing stairs, she’d attended Hogwarts for eight years, but that didn’t mean she had to  _ like  _ them.

“Alright then, go and stand on the other side of the dome and put your ear against the wall,” Nick directed as they completed their ascent. Somehow, they were the only two up there. She eyed him suspiciously but walked to the other side anyway. She’d come this far, after all, and the Cathedral was gorgeous if nothing else. She settled herself on the ancient stone and pressed her ear against the wall, eyeing Nick out the corner of her eye. He smirked.

Then he was whispering in her ear.

“Can you hear me Pansy Parkinson?”

She jerked away from the wall and stared across the dome at him in shock. It was like he was right next to her, but there he was – across the room. This had to be some sort of magic. An extension charm maybe. But an extension charm wouldn’t work forever, and Nick certainly wouldn’t know about it. He grinned, then gestured for her to resume her position. She leaned against the wall again.

“It’s a trick of acoustics – or the science of sound. Picture it like this, my whisper is skimming along the curves of this wall, all the way into your ear. Isn’t that something?”

She nodded.

“Tell me a secret Pansy.”

She hesitated, looked around the room, then back at Nick. He nodded encouragingly.

She wasn’t sure why she did it. Maybe it was that she was on sacred ground, and there was something in the air that had known secrets for centuries and would hold them in its breast long after she was gone. Maybe it was Nick – who was kind and soft and understanding and never seemed to judge. Maybe she wouldn’t have done it the day prior, or the day following. Maybe it was just that she only had to whisper it.

“I picked the wrong side in a war,” she said softly against the wall, eyes closed, and waited for the world to shatter.

It didn’t.

“I promise I like you anyway,” Nick whispered back.

They stayed against the wall for an hour, metres apart and intensely close.

* * *

There was something odd in the air when they returned to the flat. It wasn’t awkward, which Pansy had expected once whatever had possessed her to blurt out a nonsensical confession in the dome had left her. Nick was still Nick, and she was still herself. But something was… Charged.

Nick had opened a bottle of wine, and proposed getting roaring drunk and watching television, seeing as neither of them had to work tomorrow. She’d readily agreed, keen for the alcohol to suspend whatever crashing sense of self-hatred she felt was imminent considering the day’s revelations. She tried to reflect on where she stood with Muggles now, but it was hard to separate things out with Nick right there – looking handsome and telling stories about his times at school, all of which were hilarious, particularly once you added pinot noir.

“So anyway, I spent the rest of the night locked in some bloody cold war with this bloke from Hungary, who kept leaving the fucking toilet light on in the dorm! How was I supposed to sleep with fluorescent light streaming out onto my bunk?”

Pansy giggled. “Boo! Fluorescent lights! Worst things I’ve ever seen!” she called, taking a sip.

He gestured at her as if she’d told him he’d won a million pounds. “Exactly! It was honestly the worst night of my entire life.”

Pansy thought about the worst night of her life. Marvelled at the difference between the two of them. “Nothing truly bad has ever happened to you, has it, Nick?” she queried, suddenly sober.

He narrowed his eyes, which Pansy now recognised as a tell.

“Oh my god you’re  _ thinking  _ about it!”

He looked at her bashfully. “Now, now, just give me a minute—”

She sputtered in protest. “If you have to  _ think  _ about it, nothing truly bad has ever happened to you!”

“That’s not true! My father sent me to boarding school at a very young age!”

She laughed. “That’s called being  _ British _ Nick, anything else?”

He frowned. “I mean… Well, just let me think...”

Pansy let herself stare at him. Just this once. Let the wave of fondness for him crash over her guiltlessly. It felt nice.

She wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

He caught her staring. “What are you thinking, Pansy Parkinson?” he asked, tilting his head to the side to smile at her.

The way he said her name, without any of its usual implications of dark magic and evil and blood… It made her heart skip a beat. Perhaps that was why she liked him. Because he didn’t know. Because she didn’t have to prove anything. To Nick, her goodness wasn’t up for debate. To Nick, she was just Pansy. 

She wasn’t a Gryffindor, but as the living room lamplight cast his face in a golden glow, she wondered if maybe those righteous fuckers didn’t get to have a monopoly on bravery anymore. That maybe she’d steal some, just for herself. She felt her pulse quicken, and blood rush as the words tumbled out.

“I’m thinking about what it would be like to kiss you,” she confessed.

Nick grinned and moved closer to her. “Maybe you should find out,” he challenged.

She inched closer, until their noses were touching. He gazed at her, unflinching. Waiting patiently for her to make her move. His lips twitched into a smirk.

“Are you going to—”

She tipped her head to the side at that moment, her nose grazing the side of his as she dipped down to kiss him, but he’d been mid-sentence, mouth open and their teeth clacked together. Pain shot through her mouth, and she immediately pulled back, mortified, and covered her face with her hands.

“Oh my god” she moaned into her palms. “That was horrible.”

Nick was laughing, which only served to intensify her horror. Circe, he thought it was all some sort of joke. That’s what she got for liking Muggles. Truly, a lesson in humility.

“Oh my god I need to leave this flat and never return, except I can’t because—”

“Pansy—”

“I  _ stuck  _ in this stupid SE1 with someone who thinks I’m a joke, that I can’t even kiss properly—”

“Pansy…”

“I should just die, would somebody, please, avada me right now”

Nick pulled her head up from her hands, holding a single finger under her chin, and looked directly in her eyes, amusement still glimmering behind his own.

“I’d like to try again if that’s alright with you” he said gently.

Pansy looked at him doubtfully. “What would you like to try again?”

“The kiss, please.”

“The kiss?”

“If you don’t mind.”

She bit her lip. “You’re not joking.”

He grinned bashfully. “I’m sorry for laughing, the teeth thing was my fault. I was just impatient to get things going and thought a witty one-liner would speed things along.”

“It didn’t.”

“No, it didn’t.”

She hesitated. Then leaned in. Their noses brushed against each other again, but this time what followed wasn’t painful in the slightest. Their lips glided over each other smoothly, warm and soft and overlapping perfectly. He tasted like red wine and that something she kept remembering from a long time ago. She captured his bottom lip, and he sighed in contentment just as she inhaled, ready to keep going forever, and ever, and ever. As his breath filled her lungs, she distantly thought it was better than any cigarette she’d ever had, but then he traced his tongue over her bottom lip and she forgot about anything but him, and his tongue, and what was happening right now. She tangled a hand in that damned hair, pulling him closer, and he cradled her face in his hands, eager to continue.

She was the first to pull away, opening her eyes to find his still closed as she rested her forehead against his. He opened his eyes, returned her gaze, and for once there wasn’t any humour in it. He dipped to kiss her once more, just briefly and sweetly, top lip to top lip, bottom to bottom, then came back to her.

“You can kiss properly” he assured her.

“Hmmm, let’s just go again to confirm that…” she suggested, pulling on his hair a little as she drew him back in.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay! Hi there! Welcome to the first in what is hopefully a series of Pansy fics focused on the concept and process of redemption. Full props to LovesBitca8 who inspired both the use of the roommates trope and the Muggle World sentence. A stroke of genius, to be sure.
> 
> I think Pansy has a lot of potential as a character. Firstly, a female Slytherin? As in, a canonically ambitious and cunning woman? In this economy? I had to. Secondly, let's think about the world of Harry Potter for a second, about its morality. This is a world where, despite Dumbledore's assurances that “it is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities” the good guys were always good and the bad guys were always bad. The closest we get to neutrality is, arguably, Draco, and while I'm a sucker for the Draco redemption arc (hello, established Dramione) I'm more interested in writing morally grey women existing in that good/bad dynamic. 
> 
> That's all I'll say for now! I have a lot of thoughts, and there's five more chapters. Comments and kudos are love, I hope you enjoyed this! xx


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